Fiction can generally reveal truth more powerfully than fact.

And in these times when the definition of what we once knew as facts and truth is melting every bit as fast as glaciers, fiction is perhaps more needed than ever.

These are chaotic unsettling times. These are times of walls, fear and suspicion. The rancor and vitriol seems to be perpetually stuck in high gear.   People feel unsafe, unsure and lost tossed about in the divisiveness and turbulence. Many feel helpless, hopeless and voiceless.

And because of that–

Now, the role of the storyteller is paramount. This is an era of pomposity and empty rhetoric. More than ever we need the truth found in novels, plays, films, fables and poems.

Art is alchemy.

It can communicate in deep and all-but-indecipherable ways. Art can shine light in the darkness. It communicates at a visceral level and can fly past the radar. It can open hearts and change minds. It can be difficult and unsettling but it can also create change and dissolve despair.

In a very real sense, art is magic.

But instead of waiting for the return of Merlin, artists now need boldness. They need the courage to believe in their unique vision and the daring to move forward with blind faith.

The world is sounding a call to action. If you ever doubted the importance of your art, this is the time to put that doubt aside. Others have paved the way and have shown the impossible to be possible. They have moved through their doubts and past their personal dark-night-of-the-soul and have created. They have impacted their world. They have changed hearts and minds.

Blaze your own trail. To quote Emerson, which I seem to do quite a lot, “Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

This is no time of artists to doubt or hide their work.

This is not a time to be timid or hesitant.

Let your art shine particularly in the darkness. You’ll never know who the light will reach or what it will reveal.

Perhaps Frances Bacon put it best: “In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.”